Finally have a mortgage now to try and get rid of it asap

amycool

A great deal on your phone egoode! Well done!

Have a great trip!

egoode

Well I got back from my holiday yesterday I arrived at 6:30am and also worked the day so yesterday I was quite jetlagged and barely made it through the day. Luckily I was working at home so had a little nap during the day to help me get through it! I'm feeling much better today.

I for once thought I was being organised and had arranged a grocery delivery for the day I returned and thought as I had eaten most of my freezer meals I would do a beef stew and start stocking up again. I remembered to buy all the vegetables I wanted but completely forgot to buy the beef. I'm hoping to head to the butchers near me today to get some.

I had a great holiday and as I was staying with friends managed not to spend too much money. The weather was very snowy so we tended to eat in for most meals. Although I did get to my favourite clothes shop in the US and bought quite a lot but I had budgeted for it and I'm unlikely to buy much in the way of clothes for the next year or so.

I need to check all my accounts and update YNAB with my recent spending but will probably do that tomorrow however it does look like I won't be putting much in the offset account this month as I have to pay my tax by the end of the month.

I hope everyone has had a good start to the new year

egoode

Today I paid my tax and decided to transfer £3000 to my offset account. I may have to transfer some back but figured it earns no interest in my transaction account so may as well reduce the interest I'm paying on my mortgage for a bit until I'm ready to use the money.

The reason I think I may need to transfer some of it back is I'm thinking of buying a new sofa. After visiting with my friends over the New Year and sitting on their comfortable sofas I decided I need to upgrade the cheap Ikea Futon I bought when I first moved in. I only spent £130 on the futon with the plan to buy something to replace it when the sale for the flat finally went through. I've had the futon for over a year now and will put it up in the loft room as additional bedding for when friends and family visit. So this weekend will be spent looking for a new sofa. I'm not sure if the sales are still on or not but maybe I'll be lucky to get a deal but if not hopefully I'll at least get something more comfortable to sit on when watching TV.

Not much else happening. Still need to go and get some beef to make a beef stew. I went to my local butchers yesterday only to find out they have just started to close on Wednesday as it was their quietest trading day so will have to go when I'm working at home tomorrow and finally make the stew.

egoode

Well I've had a semi spendy weekend. I went sofa shopping and found a sofa I love but I was worried whether they would be able to get it into the room as they have a set of stairs to get it up and a tight turn in the hallway. Luckily the shop offers a free service where they will come and visit my place and check it fits before I order it. Hopefully they will come and do that this week sometime. The sofa also currently has 30% off and even if the visit happens after the sale ends the salesman said he would still try to get me the discount so hopefully that happens. He said he would email me and let me know this week. So haven't officially bought a sofa yet but hopefully it will happen soon.

However I did buy some Billy Bookcases from Ikea so I can finally unpack all my books that are currently stored in boxes in my bedroom. I ordered it online so not sure when they will be delivered but will hopefully have a date in the next day or two. However I'm glad I ordered online as I didn't realise that changing the colour could change the price so ended up getting the white ones which saved me £47 from the birch ones I was originally going to get. I most likely wouldn't have noticed that if I'd gone to the store myself.

I think I'm finally making this place a proper home!

egoode

Well I just got my first annual mortgage statement summary and discovered my daily interest for 2015 is £27.27 :mad: I thought it was closer to £18/day so that's a bit of a shock. Not sure if it's so high because there was a massive interest payment for my first mortgage payment back in August and it took a while to sort out how to transfer money to my offset account.

It could have been worse though thanks to my offset savings I saved myself over £400 in interest to date so my daily interest should have been closer to £30/day :eek:

I'm going to try and keep track of the daily interest amount each month so hopefully I'll see it getting lower and lower each month.


Had some good news today regarding my sofa purchase. They can't come and measure my flat to see if the sofa will fit until the 4th February which is after the sale ends however the store confirmed via email today that they will honour the sales price if I order it within 48 hours of the sizing visit which is great as it is currently 30% off.

Also I mentioned my concerns about the sofa not being able to fit up the stairs to the lounge room to my downstairs neighbour and she said I should be able to remove my sash window and bring it in that way. After hearing this I did a quick Google search and discovered this is quite a normal thing to do even for places that aren't on the ground floor. However reading the T&C's for the furniture company they don't do deliveries like that as standard so I may need to pay for a special delivery rather than getting their free service. The good thing is I've measured my window and it will definitely fit through the window so looks like I should be able to get the sofa I really want

Having grown up in Australia we always lived in a single story house and often had quite wide doorways and hallways so I never really came across this problem before of furniture not fitting up stairways or down halls and all my rentals in London already came furnished. I'm learning a lot of things about moving furniture today!

Also Ikea have confirmed the delivery of my bookcases for 25th January so will be having fun on Sunday putting together the bookcases and finally unpacking all my books I just hope the bookcases are big enough to fit them all in! I tend to only by eBooks now these days so at least I shouldn't be expanding my collection any more.

egoode

Well I had a spendy Friday as I had some farewell drinks to go to. However as I had worked from home all week was good to get out of the flat for a little while.

My bookcases got delivered on Sunday and look great I've gotten most of my books and DVD's unpacked but there's a few in the eaves space in my loft room that I can't access easily until my friend moves out in April but the bookcases are already pretty full so hopefully everything fits in once I'm able to unpack it all.

Now just waiting for the sofa company to come next week and check the sofa will be able to fit into my flat and that should be the last of any big spends for awhile.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

egoode

Well I had a bad day yesterday money-wise but it was a good day socially. I was in the office yesterday which seems to be a rarer and rarer occurrence these days. Which also coincided with a friend also being in the office (she only comes in once every couple of months) so we went out for lunch. Then one of my other friends was also in the office which is rare as she now lives in France so I also went out for dinner and drinks. So a few unexpected spends there.

Otherwise I've been pretty good with not wasting too much money but not going into the office definitely helps me save money.

I'm now just waiting impatiently for the furniture company to come on Wednesday to see if the sofa will fit up my stairs. It will be good if it does as that will be a free delivery but in case it doesn't I've also spoken to a company that can deliver it through my window but it will cost me approx. £250.

Don't have much planned for the weekend I think I need to start organising a few catch up's with friends I've been hibernating a bit the last couple of weeks.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

egoode

Well I've just had the sofa company come for the site measuring visit and as expected it won't fit up the staircase so via the window is the only option, I'm really glad I had mentioned buying a sofa to my neighbour as I would have had no idea that was even an option otherwise. So while I'm going to have to pay for a special delivery I'm still in front thanks to still being able to get the sales price with it being 30% off and I would have bought it full price as that's how much I like it and have been wanting it for over a year so quite nice to happen to get a discount

I'm going to head to the shop this afternoon to double check the fabric I was looking at having it made in and order it. I'm hoping I only have to pay a deposit today as I don't want to have to withdraw any money from my offset account.

Not much else happening money saving wise other than being a complete home body at the moment and not going out as much as usual so definitely saving money that way although I seem to have a few busy weeks coming up.

egoode

Well my sofa has been ordered I now need to wait 9-11 weeks until it's ready then I'll finally have a nice comfy sofa to sit on for the first time in over a year :j

I had to pay a 50% deposit and luckily have enough in my account to not have to take anything from the offset account and by the time I need to pay the rest I'll have the money available. Also it was a good thing I got an email confirming I was to get the sales price as they almost charged me the full price! However it all got sorted and I got the 30% off as promised

I checked my mortgage account earlier today and from what I can work out (I'm hoping my calculations are correct) I'm now paying £15.33 in interest per day so that keeps coming down nicely. Would be good to get that below £10/day by the end of the year.

I also was playing around with some of the reports in YNAB now that I've got over 6 months worth of data in there. I've been doing really well on reducing how much I spend on take aways and work lunches. I could do a bit better on not using taxis but some of those were trips too and from airports which is a bit hard to do on public transport with my bags. I think I could also do more to reduce my grocery bill. I've occasionally had to throw some food out due to bad planning so really need to start meal planning better to reduce waste although I have been doing a lot better with this than I was previously.

Now I better get back to work and I hope everyone has a good weekend

egoode

Well I had a nice relaxing weekend of doing not much as I'm going to be quite busy this week and going away for the weekend.

I don't have much mortgage news to report but I've been thinking of my overall financial position and have decided to set up a stocks and shares ISA but I want one where I can choose the shares directly rather than invest in a fund. I'm hoping to get that set up sometime this week and pull out $15k from my mortgage offset account to use my full allowance available this year. I've been thinking about this for a while now so need to stop thinking and start doing!!

I've been recommended one on share.com but if anyone here has recommendations I'm open to them.

The plan is for this money to be part of my early retirement plans. I would love to get to my 50's and not have to work if I don't want to or be able to work only part time. I probably should have started doing all this years earlier but better late than never and I like the flexibility ISA's provide in that the money isn't locked away until a certain age but will also be looking to increase how much I put into my pension next year so will have a few different investments for my eventual retirement.